WELCOME silence! welcome peace!
O most welcome, holy shade!
Thus I prove, as years increase,
My heart and soul for quiet made.
Thus I fix my firm belief,
While rapture's gushing tears descend,
'That every flower and every leaf
Is moral truth's unerring friend.
I would not, for a world of gold,
That Nature's lovely face should tire;
Fountain of blessings yet untold;
Pure source of intellectual fire!
Fancy's fair buds, the germs of song,
Unquickened 'midst the world's rude strife,
Shall sweet retirement render strong,
And morning silence bring to life.
Then tell me not that I shall grow
Forlorn, that fields and woods will cloy;
From nature and her changes flow,
An everlasting tide of joy.
I grant that summer heats will burn,
That keen will come the frosty night;
But both shall please; and each in turn
Yield reason's most supreme delight.
Build me a shrine, and I could kneel
To rural gods, or prostrate fall;
Did I not see, did I not feel,
That one Great Spirit governs all.
O Heaven permit that I may lie
Where o'er my corpse, green branches wave; And those who from life's tumults fly
With kindred feelings press my grave.
ON A FRIEND WHO DIED AT SEA.
[REV. J. LAWSON, LATE MISSIONARY AT CALCUTTA]
No mortal eye hath seen thy bed,
No heart conceived where rests thy head,
No thought imagined that repose,
Where the sea forest grows.
But the pervading light of heaven
Is there, and night is deeper driven;
God's eye smiles on thee, where thy tomb,
Low in the ocean's womb,
Hath crystal flowers, not of our earth,
But of the wild sea's secret birth,
To work in pensive growth thy pillow:
The coral is thy willow,
The crisped pale weeds are thy shroud,
The sea-stars thy escutcheon proud,
Salt mosses weave their matted thread
To wrap the holy dead.
Cathedral caverns echo there
The roaring wave's sepulchral prayer,
Or list to catch the fitful swell,
Of the hymn-breathing shell.
There angels watch thy peaceful rest,
They guard the slumbers of the blest,
Their placid brightness doth relume
The deepeat-darkest tomb.
But thou shet wake-the day shall be
When wrath shall urge the restless sea,
And the last tempest long and dread,
Shall rouse th' unnumber'd dead.
That warning blast-that voice of fear,
Shall fall with gladness on thine ear,
While bending spirits shall explain
What bade thee wake again.
Rise from thy briny tomb, arise!
The fire, devouring yonder skies,
Will light thee to the burning throne,
T'adore the Holy One.
Till then, in some deep sapphire vale,
While o'z thee rolls the unheeded gale,
Thy sleep be pleasant!-0 may mine
Be undisturb'd as thine!
With hope like thine-and faith-and love
'That link'd thee to the realms above,
Ah, I could covet thy deep rest,
And call thy cold grave blest!
SPIRIT of Death; whose outstretch'd pennons dread
Wave o'er the world beneath their shadow spread,
Who darkly speedest on thy destin'd way,
'Mid shrieks, and cries, and sounds of dire dismay;
Spirit! behold thy victory-assume
A form more terrible, an ampler plume;
For He, who wander'd o'er the world alone,
List'ning to mis'ry's universal moan;
He, who, sustain'd by Virtue's arm sublime,
"Tended the sick and poor from clime to clime,
Low in the dust is laid- thy noblest spoil!
And Mercy ceases from her awful toil!
'Twas where the pestilence at thy command
Arese to desolate the sick'ning land,
When many a mingled cry and dying prayer
Resounded to the list'ning midnight air,
When deep dismay heard not the frequent knell,
And the wan carcase fester'd as it fell:
"Twas there, with holy virtue's awful mien,
Amid the sad sights of that fearful scene,
Calm he was found: The dews of death he dry'd:
He spoke of comfort to the poor that cry'd;
He watch'd the fading eye, the flagging breath,
Ere yet the languid sense was lost in death;
And, with that look protecting angels wear,
Hung o'er the dismal couch of pale despair!
Friend of mankind! thy righteous task is o'er,
The heart, that throbb'd with pity, beats no more
Around the limits of this rolling sphere,
Where'er the just and good thy tale shall hear,
A tear shall fall :- Alone, amidst the gloom
Of the still dungeon, his long sorrow's tomb,
The captive, mourning o'er his chain, shall bend,
To think the cold earth holds his only friend!—
He who with labour draws his wasting breath
On the forsaken silent bed of death,
Rememb'ring thy last look, and anxious eye,
Shall gaze around, unvisited, and die!
Friend of mankind, farewell!—these tears we shed, So nature dictates, o'er thy earthiv bed; Yet we forget not, it was His high will, Who saw thee virtue's arduous task fulfil, Thy spirit from its toil at last should rest :So wills thy God, and what he wills is best.
Thou hast encounter'd dark disease's train,
Thou hast convers'd with poverty and pain,
Thou hast beheld the dreariest forms of woe,
That through this mournful vale unfriended go;
And, pale with sympathy, hast paus'd to hear
The saddest plaints e'er told to human ear.
Go then, the task fulfill'd, the trial o'er,
Where sickness, want, and pain, are known no more!
Howard! it matters not, that far away
From Albion's peaceful shore thy bones decay.
Him it might please, by whose sustaining hand
Thy steps were led through many a distant land,
Thy long and last abode shall there be found,
Where many a savage nation prowls around;
That Virtue from the hallow'd spot might rise,
And, pointing to the finish'd sacrifice,
Teach, to the roving Tartar's savage clan,
Lessons of love, and higher aims of man.
Nor vain the thought, that fairer hence
New views of life, and wider charities.
For from the bleak Riphean mountains hoar,
From the cold Don, and Wolga's wand'ring shore,
From many a shady forest's length'ning tract,
From many a dark-descending cataract,
Succeeding tribes shall come, and o'er the place,
Where sleeps the gen'ral friend of human race,
Instruct their children what a debt they owe;
Speak of the man who trod the paths of woe;
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